Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Chaos Daemons (section)

==Why play Chaos Daemons==
[[File:Chaos Daemons Cover.jpg|300px|right|thumb|The current codex]]
[[File:Chaos Daemons - Daemonic Incursion Cover.jpg|300px|right|thumb|The Daemonic Incursion Edition, which comes with the extra units and formations from the supplements, but is digital-only.]]
The two biggest problems with the Ork codex this edition are 1) How horribly points-inefficient it is, especially for a horde army and 2) How the randomness of the orks has been so hilariously mishandled. Well, my friends, you'll find neither such problem with Chaos Daemons; while orks are now a horde army that are written like a quality army, Daemons are a quality army written like a horde army. Not only is pretty much every special rule, gift, or psychic power good, but for what you get, most daemon units are bargains of the most epic degree. AP2 and 3 weapons are handed out like candy, and seriously, you're just as likely to have something insanely good happen to you as you are to have something insanely bad happen, although most of the time almost nothing will happen. In fact, it's this very randomness that makes Daemon armies so hard to counter, because often [[Just as Planned|not even the guy playing them will know what's about to happen.]] Hell, look at Demonic Instability, which has the potential to either [[Rape|revive an entire unit of daemons as they're about to be wiped out]] or [[Derp|save your opponent the trouble of finishing off the last units left.]] The Chaos gods cover each other pretty well (Khorne: Anti-special character and anti-psyker. Nurgle: Bodyguard and anti-heavy weapon. Tzeentch: [[Dakka| Magic dakka]]. Slaanesh: Rapetastic melee), even though they decide sometimes to take pot shots at one another in the midst of battle. All in all, if you like rolling the dice and having the ability to make even the OP Eldar and Necrons shit their high-and-mighty pants, this is the army for you.


'''Pros:''' 
*Army wide 5++ saves
*Unless you [[Khorne|actively shy away from it]], no other army, except maybe the Grey Knights, can rock the Psychic phase as hard as you can. It's very easy to rake in easily over ten charges a turn without being really spammy plus you're the only army that can use Malefic Daemonology without the fear of vaporizing into the warp and the only army that can Synergize with Daemonology. Any Space Marine can summon Bloodletters, but only you can then give those letters Rage with a loci or compensate for their lack of frag grenades with a skull cannon.
*The whole army causes Fear. Guard, Tau, and Orks will tremble when confronted by Daemons in CC.
*Powerful anti-infantry and close-combat, Daemonettes and Bloodletters being some of the best assault infantry in the game. Also [[Bloodthirsters]].
*Plentiful amounts of AP3/2, no one can give their sergeants AP2 swords as easily as you can. Plus Daemons of Slaanesh get Rending by default.
*Awesome Greater Daemons and cheap, effective Heralds. In addition, you can take multiple Heralds in [[Awesome|one HQ slot]].
*You'll tie with Tyranids with sheer amount of bodies and Monstrous Creatures you'll put on the field. Rarely will you find yourself outnumbered.
*You out specialize the Eldar by a mile- the only time they have an advantage is shooting. Your infantry will rip anything in the game apart in melee, and your heavy firepower makes opponents weep- plus they weep even more when you shrug off similar firepower in return
*Lesser daemons are beyond easy to paint, a base and a wash will do pretty much all of the work and then all that needs to be done is the odd horn, tooth and claw
*'''FUN'''<font size=5>*</font>
*Daemonic Instability: Daemons are basically Fearless, except if they lose in an assault. And those pesky Psychic powers that get rid of Fearless don't work on us, because technically we aren't Fearless, we just imitate it PLUS we can still go to ground! 
*While the random nature of the codex can be considered bad, this army rewards those who are skilled and patient enough to work around them and it does give some perks. The random nature of the codex means you're never quite out of the game. You can be put into a situation where other armies would have to give up, but a few lucky rolls could flip it around. The dex can be wildly swingy, which means you can lose out of nowhere, but if you're ahead you should be able to stay ahead unless the gods totally screw with you. In addition, with the random weapons and Warpstorm table, no two games will be the same, making this army one of the most entertaining to play with if you don't mind losing a few games.
*Our Cavalry units (Plague Drones, for example) can give our troops and other units the mobility they need via Deep Strike to get into assault (behind cover of course). For that matter, Chaos Daemons are the only army other than Death Korps and Space Wolves who can run large masses of Cavalry .
**In fact Chaos daemons have the most 'atypical' unit types of any other faction. No other faction has as many different types of Beasts, Cavalry, or Chariots as the Daemons. Most army books don't even have these types of units or only have one--Chaos Demons have not only all three types but more than one choice of each. Of course you're going to need to remember more movement rules, but so does your opponent.
*You rarely feel like you're playing fair as the book can pull off some serious cheese.  The army also approaches the game from a completely different angle than most other lists, and appeals to people who find the standard shooty game a bit stale.  Consequently, a Daemon army won't be completely locked out of a game in a position where a straightforward army would be.
*From a modeling perspective, Daemons have by far the most variety. Unless you're making a mono-god horde list, you'll rarely grow bored of painting. Kitbashing and homebrew models are accepted and highly encouraged.
*With Malefic Daemonology and a lucky roll on the Warpstorm table, you can potentially turn around an otherwise lost game. Summon a unit of Plaguebearers to land on an objective, increase your entire army's invulnerable save by +1, melt some Monstrous Creatures with "Rot, Glorious Rot", or pop your opponents Librarian or Farseer into a Herald. All of these and more are within the realm of possibility.
*Chaos Daemons shine as an ally of Chaos Marines so you can use them to bolster a Chaos Space Marine collection when you're just starting out and don't have enough for a full army by themselves. Additionally: even beyond Chaos Marines allies because all armies have excuses for Daemon summoning; you can find uses for even just one unit if that is all you can afford or have.
*You have THE best statlines in the game, bar none. Seriously, fucking Primarchs lack the sheer mano-a-mano power of your characters. Nothing in the game can beat greater daemons at their own games, and even Daemon Princes are stupidly well statted for cheaper HQs. 

'''Cons:'''
*Extreme lack of dakka outside of psychic. If you want an army that can shoot its way out of a paper bag, this is not it.
*You know how GW charges an arm and a leg for their models? For a Daemons army you can say goodbye to an eye and a testicle too. Nice kidney, GW will be taking that as well.
*Not an army for beginners. You need to know what codex you're up against and play accordingly, so knowledge of other codices is vital.
*The abundance of random tables can cause the result of the game to be determined regardless of tactics or strategy. The army can simply lose without warning to unlikely random chance--A roll of 12 for Instability, and a key, durable unit completely disappears. Fairly rare, but it's possible.
*Because of the random rolls you need a lot more bookkeeping compared to other armies since you need to write down your Warlord Trait, gifts and psychic powers. Your opponent will hate you if you have shitty handwriting or don't have a good set of tokens.
*Even worse against Grey Knights now without Eternal Warrior and new dependence on psykers. (However, since you can deploy normally, they can't use that annoying tactic of covering the board in warp quakes and killing you before they fire a shot).
*Lack of Eternal Warrior means you have to roll on Biomancy if shit hits the fan
*Everything goes squish. Most of your units are Toughness 3 or 4, and with a basic 5++ you'll have models die in droves. Even on your Greater Daemons the best save you'll get is a 3+ armor save and possibly a Feel No Pain (4+) in the form of a Greater Reward. Anti-infantry will be the literal death of you.
*Daemonic Instability: Daemons are Fearless... except if they lose in an assault. If failed, the unit takes wounds equal to the difference of the leadership. If a 12 is rolled, the entire unit is evaporated. No Instant Death or whatever, your models simply cease to exist and you have to go buy new ones. 
*The Warpstorm can be really annoying, with most of the rolls causing damage to your units. Take Fateweaver to "fix" this due to his guaranteed warlord trait, or take units of an opposing god with an instrument.
*While it is an entirely viable army on its own, it's sadly best as an allied force alongside Chaos Space Marines. Daemons provide the bodies, Psychic powers, and Monstrous Creatures that they lack.
*As of the time of this writing, Warzone Fenris gave the Chaos Daemons lots of new toys like god-specific artifacts, warlord traits, and expanded psychic powers... then Game Workshop released Wrath of Magnus which has some Tzeentch-aligned toys, such as mobius strip horrors, meaning you need another $200 book to play daemons optimally. The first two can be acquired easily enough--Head to Black Library and look up Codex Chaos Daemons: Daemonic Incursion Edition. It may be iBook only, but it wraps up both the main Codex plus the Warzone Fenris goodies into one fairly cheap package. It's better than the FUCKING Chaos Space Marines--now sitting at one codex, four supplements and a basic requirement to have forge world to be competitive at a higher level, but it's getting close. As for the Wrath of Magnus, unless you want to pay $200 or like the other goodies, maybe skip out on the 'once pink new two blue' rule.
*Wargear is very limited- you really have to rely on the stupid statlines of daemons to win rather than careful army composition, entertainingly forcing each unit to be fairly generalist